Mr. Rachman outdoes himself in this second paragraph of his anguished love letter to M. 37%. And the quotes from CIA shill Jeff Bezos’ Neo-Con dominated Washington Post, or from John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei’s political gossip sheet Politico (Leader of The Free World, bunk!) lends nothing , with the exception of the power of the ersatz charisma of Macron. Or that he ‘radiates energy, charisma and intelligence’ Where might the reader place his declining approval ratings at 40% as of last week?

At a time when Angela Merkel looks tired, Theresa May looks overwhelmed and Donald Trump looks berserk, the French president radiates energy, charisma and intelligence. His US trip generated laudatory headlines, with a Washington Post column arguing that “the fate of the western alliance is in Macron’s hands” and Politico proclaiming that Mr Macron is now the “new leader of the free world”.

But Mr Rachman does not miss the point of Macron’s steeply declining French poll numbers, Macron dismisses ‘polls’ in his Vanity Fair interview:

Mr. Rachman says of Macron : ‘He has admirers in many western capitals (and in even more western newsrooms). Although Mr. Rachman is not a reporter, but a Financial Times Pundit, who recites the Neo-Liberal Party Line. The hint is that our writer is not wearing blinders, but softens the impact of such a vexing political conundrum as eroding support for Jupertarian Politics.

But to lead you have to have followers — or at least close allies. So far, Mr Macron is struggling in that department. He has admirers in many western capitals (and in even more western newsrooms). But there is, as yet, little evidence that he can form international coalitions to shift the direction of world affairs.

What Macron and Trump share is their Authoritarian Personalities, in that very important sense they a kin.

Rachman, then, engages in an exercise in self-serving History Made to Measure in its crudest form. But the clear evidence is that M. 37% is a New Cold Warrior gives some consolation. And in the final ,yet truly surprising conclusion to Mr. Rachman’s essay, that almost looks like a bolt of Political Realism, he is still unable to face the pervasive nihilism of Neo-Liberalism, and he trivializes it as less fashionable. Liberalism and Neo-Liberalism cannot be mistaken for each other, although demonstrating a kind of diffuse propinquity.While one of the central dogmas of that Economic Theology, ‘The Self-Correcting Market’ , has yet to manifest itself, to put right the Economic Collapse of 2008, and its interminable aftermath. Not to speak of a Capitalism, that has forgotten the Cold War Myth that its Free Market would bring an unending age of prosperity!

The danger for Mr Macron is that he could be a leader who is out of tune with the times. At home, he is a liberal economic reformer, at a time when “neoliberalism” has never been less fashionable. He is a pro-European at a time of mounting Euroscepticism across the EU. He is a globalist and an internationalist at a time when protectionism and nationalism are on the march.

Agatha Christie’s great detective was an empiricist to her core, aided by the working of her mind, and the insights that came to her as flashes of intuition. Would that your bizarre affirmation of what, exactly, could reach her standard! Faith in Macron’s ability to charm? Or sharing in his exercise of his rampant megalomania ? His unslakable ambition for a place on the World Stage should be a warning signal, at least for the empiricist not blinded by a perverse hero worship!

This man who managed to inspire a 36.5% of uncountable ballots, either blank or spoiled in some way , in the final vote. And his popularity at 40 % with the Rolling Strikes make a perfect political atmosphere for the ‘Left’ or a ‘Center’ not corrupted by the Neo-Liberal pathogen (A vain hope I know!) to bring his Pseudo-Revolution to a crawl.

And this:

A politician’s actions cannot be dictated by opinion polls

Macron came to power with a ready made dissident citizenry of that 36.5%, factor that with his 40% popularity, representing the decline of a decline: and even the most ardent acolyte, might just be chastened by the inconvenient empirical evidence.?

While @Descartes, above your comment, makes, raises some challenging, indeed very pertinent issues, you recite The Neo-Liberal Party Line on France:

Macron today represents both the hope for a liberal and democratic Europe as well as at least a hope for a revitalized France which slowly is succumbing to a national inertia which is depriving young French people a fair chance to build a prosperous life of their own by establishing entrepreneurial small companies and obtaining relevant education in a society that does not give all its people equal chances.

Yet in America that selfsame Neo-Liberalism has eviscerated the Middle Class, the very life force of Democracy. The inertia you speak of, in the French context, is not just present in America, it is the product of the misbegotten Neo-Liberal experiment, that demonstrates that one of the articles of Faith of this Corporatist Swindle, the Self-Correcting Market, is the purest of fictions. The Entrepreneur is not an historical singularity, to replace the Citizen in all her obligations, privileges, duties ,nor to speak of her sovereignty. The Economic Trinity of Mises/Hayek/Friedman to express it in the most vulgar terms were/are Corporatists with a pretentious ‘philosophical veneer’. Begin your inquiry here: